


rain over tormented cities

by glassy_light



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon, TOTAL bruh moment, ahahhah yuppie!Marcus, i firmly believe that before marcus was a health nut he was a total mess, im a clown we all know it, marcus is trying really hard not to get attached, pretend the flashback is like mid 80s idk dude, tfw ur best friend kisses you and then freaks out, thats marcus & his inner turmoil hehehoho, this is angsty cos god made me a bastard BUT i have fluff planned, title is a pablo neruda ref yeehaw, you know that meme thats like 'god gives his hardest battles to his sexiest soldiers'?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:53:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22234360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glassy_light/pseuds/glassy_light
Summary: As usual, Marcus didn’t point out that they were going 70 in a 55. Maybe it would work out; maybe the tension would sink into memory by their next job. On the drive back, it started to rain again.
Relationships: Marcus/John Wick
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	rain over tormented cities

John’s face was cool and collected, a never-changing mask of white death, but at this distance, Marcus could practically see his pulse jumping in his neck, hear the slight shift as his breathing hitched. If there was one thing he was good at, it was body language. He could rend meaning from a slight shift in stance, a lift of a hand, an awkward smile. He had to, working at the distance he did. John was anything but hesitant, standing there, leaning slightly forward. When John breached the gap between them, Marcus stepped forward to meet him. He didn’t care that he was getting blood on his shoes. 

Marcus felt as disoriented as the day he met the kid. He remembered the cold strips of light the venetian blinds cast on the wall, the way the telephone cut the silence of his apartment like a knife. Winston was on the other end of the line, talking too fast to keep up, saying something about meeting someone, about something promising.

“Okay, sure.” He sat up from the floor and tried to enunciate despite his headache.

“Are you drunk?” Winston sounded murderous. Marcus pictured him sitting behind his heavy desk, foaming at the mouth. Twisting the phone cord in angry circles.

“Uh,” Marcus rubbed a hand along his jaw, “Yeah.” It sounded pathetic, even to him.

“Tsk tsk. And usually so pedantic, too. Day drinking doesn’t suit you.” The receiver clicked down and the line went dead.

Marcus thought that day drinking suited him just fine. He wasn’t on the job, could slip up and be messy for once. Let that unraveling feeling inside play itself out where he could control it. As long as he was sober and clear-headed when a gun was in his steady hands, he didn’t think it mattered. He told himself that he was good at his job as he stretched and looked for a suit, tried to work the words into stone. It had the weight of a lie, though he knew it wasn't. 

The water from the tap was cold on his face, and he tried not to look too closely at the lines the mirror showed him, starting around his eyes, running like cracks. Marcus hadn’t expected to make it this long. His line of work usually came with count-down timer, and now that the numbers were running past his beating heart in negatives, he didn’t know what to do. Keep going, he guessed.

He changed out of his day-old clothes, dressed in a suit he’d had for a year or two, and left his apartment with a 92F tucked under his jacket. Marcus might be going on invitation, but he was wary. The Continental crowd tended to make you nervous; the type of people who you would change cars because of on the subway. He sensed, vaguely, that he also radiated a brand of cold menace. It was just the way of things, something you picked up like a habit after working this job.

Winston was an ass on the phone, which wasn’t new. He used the excuse that he hadn’t been given an actual time to meet him to walk a few blocks in the twilight of late August. The city was hot and sticky all summer long, the burning warmth slinking between the buildings and settling into the concrete like a cat in the sun. The breeze was still warm, but had a cool uptick at the end, promising a shift. Marcus liked late summer, had since he was a child. 

He still lived in Bowery, which Winston liked to give him shit for. He liked the pulse of it, all that moving young life. It was easy to fade to nothing in the background, emerging for a line or two in a CBGB’s bathroom when the mood struck him.

He walked until he felt like he has sobered up some, which happened after the sun burned to red and then fizzled out behind the city buildings. He hailed a cab in the dark somewhere around Avenue A, and sat in the dark womb of the back seat as it shuttled him along the east river. It started to rain, lightly at first, but grew to something biblical the time he stepped out onto the pavement before the Continental’s awning.

The lounge of the Continental was dark, all mahogany and leather, and a little too maximalist for Marcus’ taste. He was a bit more brutalist, a bit more modern. Practical angles. It was almost dead, just a few unknown faces scattered about talking in low tones. He looked around for Winston, but couldn’t find him. 

The bar looked inviting, the same way a familiar pain is inviting, so he crossed over to it with faint derision and leaned palms-down against the lacquered wood. He eyed the glittering crystal of the bottles behind the counter for a heavy moment before deciding on something potent.

His drink had just been given to him when Winston clapped him on the shoulder. “Marcus! You look tired.” Winston was right, Marcus had the harrowed look of a man waiting for shit to go sideways, and he knew it. The enthusiasm, however, was uncalled for.

“Yeah, fuck you,” Marcus shrugged Winston’s clammy hand off the shoulder of his suit. “Want to remind me why I’m here?” He looked longingly at his drink, sweating circles on the wood, but waited.

“I have a job for you.” Winston looked too pleased for it to sit comfortably.

“I thought I was meeting someone.” 

“You are. He’s a project of mine; I want you to mentor him.” He said it the tone you would use to mention jigsaw puzzles or model planes. 

“Uh-uh. Not happening.” Marcus let himself crumble a bit, took a sip of his drink and listen to Winston sigh.

“The hand, Marcus. Stop snapping at it. Besides, what kind of boss would I be if I let you ruin yourself with this day-drinking nonsense?” A boss that couldn’t turn a profit, but Marcus didn’t say that.

“5 o’clock somewhere.” 

“Did I mention he’s showing promise? Much more than anyone else ever has,” he shot Marcus with a vaguely pointed look, “and I’m prepared to pay you more than fair.”

“If he’s promising, why does he need a mentor?” he tried to think back to his first few hits. Sure, they had mostly ended badly, but he made it out alive. He hoped “more than fair” wasn’t an exaggeration.

“I need you to get rid of his green streak. He’s a little,” Winston shrugged like it wasn’t life-or-death, “Careless.”

“...When am I going to meet the kid?” Marcus could feel himself resigning to fate. He was nothing if not pragmatic, but that resolve was disintegrating under a swelling headache and a re-emerging buzz. 

“Right now. I have a table,” And then Marcus saw him: sitting alone in the corner, watching them both. In the low light, the specifics of his face melted into one another, but he didn’t need to be close to see that he was young. And handsome. In that moment, Marcus felt too old. All that kneeling on rooftops, maybe. Bad for his joints.

As they crossed the room, Marcus started a list. The kid had black, shaggy hair that he could have cut himself. He seemed composed, not tense at all. His outfit was horrible. Marcus would have to strip him of the habit. No way in hell was he going to be seen with someone who dressed like that. His reputation didn’t need that kind of blow.

“Marcus,” he held out his hand that wasn’t clasped around his drink. The kid took it, firm and professional.

“John Wick.”

“You holding up ok? Where’s he keeping you?” He glared sideways at Winston, who was grinning like a dog, all teeth.  
“Never better. A room upstairs.” John has a smugness in his voice that was recognizably Winston-ish. He’d have to fix that, too. Assassins were generally assholes, sure, but killers first and foremost. Give bastard a gun, and you’d end up dead.

They talked for a bit, mostly Winston, and once he uttered how he would be paid (Winston hadn’t been exaggerating at all) Marus stopped listening altogether. He kept John in his peripheral, noting the way he moved, how he talked. 

“Ok. I’ll do it.” Winston was right, John had potential. Maybe it was selfishness that had him reaching out, but the kid needed a steady hand, and like hell was he going to let some other idiot have him. 

“Really? Fantastic. I’ll keep you informed on what’s to come.” He flashed a wolf’s smile, and then Marcus was out on the pavement. The rain had stopped, and the air was fresh. A line of taxis waited on the curb. 

When he got out two blocks from his building, he sat down on a bench and smoked the rest of a crushed carton of cigarettes, thinking of all the ways a pretty face might get him killed. When he had finished he threw the carton into the gutter and didn’t stop at the corner bodega for another pack. Better a pretty face than from liver failure or a bad lung. 

But now he had that mouth on his, wet and warm, and a steady hand on his shoulder. One of his hands was fisted in the front of a black dress shirt, the other still clutching desperately at his gun. Marcus couldn’t remember if he had turned the safety off, and for once he didn’t care. He was embarrassingly hard already, praying that John would pull away and end it because he didn’t have the strength to.

John wasn’t romantic about it when he pulled him down to the floor, which Marcus was thankful for. Sentiment could gut you in a million different ways; it was easier to be selfish. In an effort to discourage that painful swell of something he was desperate to avoid labeling “love”, he let John press him hard against the concrete floor of the warehouse, cold on his back, and fumble with the fly of his slacks. 

He didn’t touch Marcus while he fucked him, just panted into his neck. Marcus didn’t mind; thought he might break to pieces if John did. He tried to not make any desperate sounds, could hardly trust that his voice wouldn’t betray him.

When it was over he sat up wordlessly, heart pinned somewhere in his throat. He swallowed thickly in an attempt to dislodge the unsteady feeling. He tried not to look at John, just reached for his gun where it skidded a few feet away and tucked it back underneath his jacket. The warehouse suddenly felt cold, all buzzing antiseptic fluorescence and cooling bodies.

“I love you.” Marcus couldn’t help but look at him then. His mask had fallen away to show something minutely softer, something that an untrained eye might not catch. An openness around his eyes and mouth. John was still a mess, pants unbuttoned. He looked serious. It hit him under the ribs, pulling somewhere close to his heart.

“Don’t say that.” His throat was dry. The way John looked at him with wide-open eyes hurt. The kid didn’t seem surprised, and Marcus couldn’t tell if that made it better or worse.

On the way out, there was a heavy silence. It troubled Marcus, that he couldn’t read that stretch of quiet. Maybe he broke it. He told himself it didn’t matter; tried to ignore that long-buried itch for a cigarette that was clawing at his disintegrating resolve. Wished that the kid had listened to what he tried to teach him.

John drove like always, quiet like always, eyes cast somewhere in the dark they were cutting through like a knife. As usual, Marcus didn’t point out that they were going 70 in a 55. Maybe it would work out; maybe the tension would sink into memory by their next job. On the drive back, it started to rain again.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, comments make my day (seriously!! anything!!)


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